Depending upon the type of job a person has, it may be necessary for the person to wear a suit, a dress shirt, and a tie to work each day. While local standards and dress code may differ, a professional, such as a lawyer, doctor, or business person might be considered inappropriately dressed if not wearing a dress shirt and tie, even if not wearing suit coat. There are also many occasions for which appropriate dress includes wearing a tie, regardless of a person's work. Furthermore, the wearing of ties is not limited to males, since women professionals may also choose to wear a suit and tie. Ties have thus become a common part of a person's wardrobe, no matter how often they are worn.
A person may own a number of ties that have been purchased to match specific suits and/or shirts, or received as gifts. The ties worn by a person can vary somewhat in length, because there does not appear to be a fixed standard. As a result, each time that a person selects a different tie to wear, there is often uncertainty about where to initially start to form the knot to ensure that the broad end of the ties hangs down the correct length from the neck. If the knot is formed at the wrong place, the tie may hang too short, and in some cases where the initial guess about where to start the knot is really wrong, the narrow end of the tie may actually hang below the broad end. Or, the broad end of the tie may hang too long below the waistline and be visible below the bottom of a suit coat. If the same tie were always worn, a person might learn how judge where to start the knot based on where the broad end of the tie overlies the narrow end of the tie, but few people become that familiar with their ties or only wear one or two different ties. Since there is uncertainty about where a knot should be started, it is common for a person to make two or more attempts to tie a knot so that the knot is correctly positioned, and the broad end of the tie hangs at the correct position, i.e., at about the top of the trousers, at the waistline. When rushing to dress, it can be very frustrating to have to retie a tie several times to achieve the proper hanging length for the broad end.
Each person will generally have a favorite knot that they use for a tie and will use the same knot each time that a tie is worn. Examples of the most common types of knots include the Windsor, Half Windsor, Pratt, Prince Albert, Victoria, and the Four-in-Hand. The portion of the total length of tie that is used to tie these different types of knots may vary, depending upon the knot. For example, the Four-in-Hand knot uses more of the tie length to form the knot than the Half Windsor. Thus, if a person decides to start tying their ties with a different type of knot, then the experience relied upon for where to start the knot may change, making it even more likely that the person will need to make several attempts before succeeding in tying the tie with the correct hanging length for the broad end of the tie.
Accordingly, it would be desirable to apply a systematic approach to tying a tie that guarantees that the hanging length of the broad end of the tie will always be correct. The systematic approach should be appropriate regardless of the length of the tie (at least within the normal range for tie lengths) for a given type of knot used for tying the tie. It would also be desirable to be able to purchase a kit to more readily use this systematic approach.